As the percentage of males on our college campuses continues to decline,
many observers are finally beginning to ask questions. Much of the discussion
has focused on the fact that boys at all levels K-12 have fallen seriously
behind their female counterparts, and how our schools are not meeting
boys' needs. This discussion of males' educational problems -- particularly
the problems of low-income and minority males -- is long overdue, and
boys' sagging educational performance is one of the main reasons for the
increasing disappearance of male students from our college campuses.

However,
there is another, unacknowledged reason why some males don't go to college
-- rampant anti-male feminism has made college campuses a place where
many males feel unwanted and unwelcome. To use a feminist term, our universities
have become "hostile environments" for young men.

To illustrate,
let's look at one campus -- the University of California at Los Angeles,
1999-2001. Sensationalized lies about men -- what dissident feminist Christina
Hoff Sommers and others call "Hate Statistics" -- were an integral part
of the campus culture. The Women's Resource Center (later renamed the
Center for Women and Men), the Clothesline Project, and others publicized
previously discredited claims such as: "One in four college women has
been the victim of rape or attempted rape" and "domestic violence is the
leading cause of injury to women aged 15 to 44."

Worse, such
statistics were repeated ad infinitum and ad nauseam by
the campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, and also by both professors
and students. The message behind the lies was clear -- men are so powerful
and despicable, and women are so helpless and victimized, that men had
better not dare to complain about anything.

This hostile
attitude towards males is manifest in the classroom as well. I recall,
for example, my Latin American folklore class, taught by a woman whom
we'll call Ms. Smith. Ms. Smith is a kind, gentle, elderly lady whose
bigotry nevertheless rings loud and clear. The sometimes subtle, sometimes
slap-in-the-face prejudice which males endured in her class is typical
of what occurs in many modern university classes.

Early in
the semester Ms. Smith informed the class that all folklore was widely
believed to be a code of misogyny that was developed and employed by men
to suppress women. Ms. Smith did say she considered this to be a slight
exaggeration, yet whenever a folktale contained a negative portrayal of
a woman, it was cited as evidence of the rampant misogyny in men's dark
souls. What Ms. Smith never explained was why this "misogynistic" folklore
contained far more negative portrayals of men than of women.

Ms. Smith
also informed us that women largely invented folklore, because it was
women who had the "long, tiresome, boring jobs" and thus the motivation
to invent it. Unanswered were two questions. One, why would we say that
folklore was misogynistic if women had in fact, largely invented it? Two,
did we really imagine that the men of that era -- or at least 98 per cent of them
-- did not also have "long, tiresome, boring" jobs?

Most of
the males sat in the back of Ms. Smith's class, an arrangement which started
to feel more and more like the back of the bus. The females in front were
fully engaged, enjoying the class and its anti-male tales. Not surprisingly,
many of the males were disengaged, and seemed to be there simply to put
in their time.

One day,
after an hour or so discussing tale after tale where Ms. Smith concluded
that the men involved were always wrong or evil or cruel or stupid and
the women were always right and good and kind and smart, Ms. Smith began
softly describing a soothing tale of a father and his daughter setting
off through the woods to go to the big city. "The father....and his daughter....rode
together... as they went through the beautiful Spanish countryside," Ms.
Smith said softly. I sat back and closed my eyes. "They...were on their
way to the big city....the daughter had never seen the city before.....she
was happy that her father was taking her..." I imagined a special, loving,
father-daughter bond. "And then.....he rapes her."

Jolted,
I sat up. A male in the back of the classroom pushed his heavy book off
of the table and it made a loud, crashing sound. An accident? Or the only
protest he could make?

I did sometimes
protest in Ms. Smith's class and others, but a 6'2" male confronting a
female educator about her bigotry, however politely, is quickly perceived
as a sexist bully. In addition, tension and arguing make the days and
semesters long and hard, and there were times when it was easier to tune
out, as so many other males had done.

Part of
the reason it is difficult and unpleasant to be a male college student
today is that anti-male bigotry pops up by surprise all the time in the
most unlikely places. For example, on my Portuguese final we were presented
with some disputes and were expected to discuss possible solutions to
them in Portuguese. A couple of the problems were between married couples,
and in both situations there was a clear person who was right and a clear
person who was wrong. The reader can guess the gender of both offenders
without my assistance.

In answering
one of them, about a husband who was oppressing his wife by not "doing
his share" around the house, I explained that numerous studies have shown
that, when all work -- both housework and breadwinning -- is considered,
American men are doing at least as much in their households as women are.
I also noted that I was unhappy with this negative portrayal of men.

To her credit,
the professor graded me fairly and responded to my objection. She explained
that my complaint was not valid because men's control of society versus
women's control is so vast that a man's complaints about anti-male prejudice
paled in meaning. In other words, it's okay to say whatever you want about
men, no matter how unfair, cruel, or inaccurate, because all the man-hate
in the world could never amount to more than tugging on Superman's cape.

In the library
after Ms. Smith's class on the day the student dropped the book in protest,
I pondered how sad and unfair it was that he and other young men had been
branded, stigmatized, and marginalized in the institution which was supposed
to enlighten them and set fire to their minds.

I thought
of the feminist academics (female and male) who poured their derision
upon these college men, knowing that their students could not effectively
fight back. I thought of the timid male professors who were so content
with their own careers that they were perfectly willing to allow 18 year-old
boys to be beat up on rather than jeopardize their own comfort by speaking
out.

And I asked
myself a question which hundreds of thousands of male college students
often ask themselves: "What am I even doing here?"

Glenn Sacks writes about gender issues from the male perspective. His
columns have appeared in dozens of the largest newspapers in the United
States. He invites readers to visit his website at GlennSacks.com.